VoteHub

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Democrats are heavily favored to flip the House, while the Senate is a tossup.

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Hilton overperformed today in Central Valley counties and key Southland counties like Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino.

Even with Steyer beating expectations in many large counties, Hilton’s projected margin rose from 0.6% to 1.3%, moving his win chance from 62% to 85%.

[Zachary Donnini @ZacharyDonnini]

CA Governor’s Race: Where things stand

At this point, I view Steve Hilton to be clearly favored.

The cleanest way to frame the race is this: if VoteHub’s current turnout estimates are right, and if late mail in every county keeps breaking the way it has so far, Steyer would win the remaining ballots by 4.2 points. This would still leave Hilton winning by 2.0 points, with a roughly 192,000-vote margin. Steyer needs to win the remaining trail by 11.1 points to catch him.

There are reasons to think the trail could keep improving for Steyer. In major counties with at least 20,000 mail ballots counted, his day-to-day improvement against Hilton has generally moved left:

Los Angeles: +13.3, +15.3, +18.7
San Diego: +13.2, +16.7
Orange: +10.0, +11.4, +8.4
San Bernardino: +5.7, +2.7
Riverside: -1.2, +4.7, +2.2
Santa Clara: +13.8, +15.0, +16.0
San Francisco: +15.2, +19.2
Solano: +9.5, +10.0, +10.2
San Mateo: +14.7, +15.2

So yes, the trail is generally getting better for Steyer. But it is not getting better fast enough in the major counties to make it easy to believe the remaining vote will be 7 points bluer than what we have seen over the last few days.

Our current fairway estimate does assume some continued leftward movement. Even then, Steyer wins the rest of the trail by about 6.7 points, which would still leave Hilton ahead by 1.4 points.

So how did Steyer get into this position?

He is doing well in the trail San Diego, Los Angeles County, and the Bay Area. But he is struggling almost everywhere else. The biggest weakness for Democrats, including Steyer, has been in the Central Valley and Inland Empire.

That was somewhat expected in the early vote, given that these are heavily Hispanic areas where Biden performed well in 2020 but where Democrats slipped in 2024. But the late-mail trail has also been weaker than Democrats needed, and when it has improved, much of the gain has gone to Becerra rather than Steyer.

Steyer is getting what he needed from his strongest regions, with the Bay Area and Los Angeles moving even further in his direction. But he is not getting enough from Hispanic-heavy areas, which means the big urban counties would have to shift unrealistically far left to make up the gap.

The completed or nearly completed counties are also not especially encouraging for Democrats. Republicans are at 36.3% in Solano, which is almost fully reported, compared to Trump’s 33.7% there in 2020. In Kings, Republicans are at 59.7%, compared to Trump’s 54.9% in 2020.

That is limited data, but it suggests California may not be on track to match Biden-era Democratic margins across much of the state. It is hard to see Democrats matching Biden’s numbers in places like Kern if they are running closer to Harris in Kings.

That said, primaries can produce weird turnout effects. Democrats really need the more white, liberal parts of the state, which Solano and Kings are not, to show extremely strong late Democratic turnout.

For Steyer, that means tomorrow’s numbers likely need to move meaningfully left: Los Angeles above 20, Orange closer to 15, Santa Clara around 18, and similar improvements elsewhere.

Why does Steyer still have a chance?

Because California late mail can be volatile, and the remaining vote in the biggest urban counties with more White liberals could still get substantially bluer.

Turnout isn't certain. Steyer would love some eventual turnout in blue areas to be higher than my estimates right now, but it isn't likely.

But the core issue remains: Steyer is not doing well enough in the trail outside places like San Francisco, Alameda, Santa Clara, and Los Angeles. And we have a couple completed counties coming in where it doesn't look great for Dems. He still has a path, but it is narrow, and Hilton remains clearly favored.

One note on turnout estimates: Giving it a glance, VoteHub’s current estimate is a mix of DDHQ and the AP. We are closer to DDHQ in assuming roughly 40,000–50,000 more outstanding Alameda ballots than AP, while we are closer to AP on total expected turnout, at about 9.56 million statewide.

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San Joaquin County 6/5 Drop

Candidate – Votes (Percent, Difference from 6/2 Votes)
🔵 Xavier Becerra – 9,659 (29.6%, +7.5%)
🔴 Steve Hilton – 8,984 (27.6%, -4.2%)
🔵 Tom Steyer – 5,887 (18.1%, +3.4%)
🔴 Chad Bianco – 4,116 (12.6%, -2.7%)

[Ellis Bates @ElliscbIV]

Great drop for Steyer in San Diego, netting a 17-point gain over Hilton. Despite weaker performance in Southern California overall, he is holding up in urban counties like Los Angeles and San Diego.

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Shasta County 6/5 Drop

Candidate – Votes (Percent, Difference from 6/2 Votes)
🔴 Steve Hilton – 3,116 (39.0%, -2.4%)
🔴 Chad Bianco – 1,765 (22.1%, -0.4%)
🔵 Tom Steyer – 1,174 (14.7%, +1.5%)
🔵 Xavier Becerra – 1,140 (14.3%, +3.9%)

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San Diego County 6/5 Drop

Candidate – Votes (Percent, Difference from 6/2 Votes)
🔵 Xavier Becerra – 22,737 (31.6%, +6.8%)
🔵 Tom Steyer – 19,155 (26.6%, +8.5%)
🔴 Steve Hilton – 17,797 (24.7%, -8.2%)
🔴 Chad Bianco – 4,699 (6.5%, -3.0%)

[Garrett Herrin @GarrettHerrin]

While OC reports ballots remaining by method, most counties don’t. If LA County is counting drop boxes before E Day dropoffs (reverse of OC), that may explain Steyer’s strength today. But if LA is following the same method as OC, Steyer may be even stronger in the remaining vote.

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Mono County 6/5 Drop

Candidate – Votes (Percent, Difference from 6/2 Votes)
🔵 Xavier Becerra – 266 (31.6%, +8.6%)
🔵 Tom Steyer – 202 (24.0%, +7.8%)
🔴 Steve Hilton – 182 (21.6%, -10.0%)
🔴 Chad Bianco – 105 (12.5%, -2.5%)

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Riverside County 6/5 Drop

Candidate – Votes (Percent, Difference from 6/2 Votes)
🔵 Xavier Becerra – 9,379 (28.0%, +3.6%)
🔴 Chad Bianco – 9,005 (26.9%, -0.6%)
🔴 Steve Hilton – 6,860 (20.5%, -0.8%)
🔵 Tom Steyer – 5,678 (16.9%, +1.4%)

[Zachary Donnini @ZacharyDonnini]

I’ll write a longer post on this later tonight , but I want to be clear: even though the post above is "good" for Steyer--and at this point there's a big engagement gap on the posts "good" or "bad" for Steyer--I do see Steve Hilton as the clear favorite at this point.

[Zachary Donnini @ZacharyDonnini]

Great find here by DJ: I expect drop box ballots to be better for Steyer than drop-off ballots, and today’s batch was drop-offs. That could leave room for stronger Steyer numbers in later batches, depending on the mix of remaining ballots.

[Zachary Donnini @ZacharyDonnini]

Steyer is still in it, but he needs more to break his way. The trail has to improve quickly in more Hispanic areas outside LA and the Bay, or he needs more votes than expected in his strongholds, plus very blue drops there.

As the underdog, he needs most things to go right.

[VoteHub @VoteHub]

Modoc County 6/5 Drop

Candidate – Votes (Percent, Difference from 6/2 Votes)
🔴 Steve Hilton – 201 (42.1%, +0.6%)
🔴 Chad Bianco – 150 (31.4%, +1.3%)
🔵 Tom Steyer – 40 (8.4%, -2.9%)
🔵 Xavier Becerra – 36 (7.5%, +0.5%)

[Ellis Bates @ElliscbIV]

Poor result for Steyer in Orange County, continuing a trend of Southern California counties, with the exception of Los Angeles, falling substantially short of his benchmark.

[VoteHub @VoteHub]

Imperial County 6/5 Drop

Candidate – Votes (Percent, Difference from 6/2 Votes)
🔵 Xavier Becerra – 1,254 (30.4%, +5.8%)
🔴 Chad Bianco – 886 (21.4%, +1.2%)
🔵 Tom Steyer – 778 (18.8%, +1.3%)
🔴 Steve Hilton – 722 (17.5%, -0.6%)

[VoteHub @VoteHub]

Solano County 6/5 Drop

Candidate – Votes (Percent, Difference from 6/2 Votes)
🔵 Xavier Becerra – 5,884 (33.2%, +6.5%)
🔵 Tom Steyer – 4,183 (23.6%, +4.3%)
🔴 Steve Hilton – 3,862 (21.8%, -5.8%)
🔴 Chad Bianco – 1,623 (9.1%, -1.7%)

[VoteHub @VoteHub]

Santa Clara County 6/5 Drop

Candidate – Votes (Percent, Difference from 6/2 Votes)
🔵 Xavier Becerra – 11,857 (34.6%, +5.8%)
🔵 Tom Steyer – 10,289 (30.0%, +9.2%)
🔴 Steve Hilton – 5,979 (17.4%, -6.8%)
🔴 Chad Bianco – 1,101 (3.2%, -2.2%)

[VoteHub @VoteHub]

Orange County 6/5 Drop

Candidate – Votes (Percent, Difference from 6/2 Votes)
🔴 Steve Hilton – 16,423 (33.8%, -3.8%)
🔵 Xavier Becerra – 13,445 (27.7%, +6.0%)
🔵 Tom Steyer – 9,730 (20.1%, +4.5%)
🔴 Chad Bianco – 4,044 (8.3%, -2.8%)

[Zachary Donnini @ZacharyDonnini]

The Central Valley remains Hilton's best region in the trail so far. The CV trail has been volatile in past elections, so today's pattern may not hold.

If Hilton keeps gaining ground there, Steyer needs even stronger numbers out of LA and the Bay Area than I'm sure are possible.